ARISTOCRATIC ENGLAND
vehemently protested against this as an act of war—having
already had a violent scene with the English Ambassador, Lord
Whitworth, in the month before on the point of Malta. The
English Government advanced towards a breach of the treaty by
putting forward a proposal to hold Malta for ten years, and
this was, of course, the breaking-point. On May 12 the English
Ambassador left Paris, and on the i8th the British Government
declared war upon France. Before doing so it had seized a
thousand Dutch and French vessels in English ports with their
cargoes, to the value of eight millions, while still at peace:
Napoleon replied by holding all Englishmen still within his
dominions as prisoners, and so they remained, not in the sense
of being incarcerated, but marked by his police and prevented
from going whither they would.
The New Coalition is prepared. The Proposal to
invade England. Pitt must now prepare a new coalition, if
that should be possible—that is, he must continue the now
long-fixed tradition of England, the finding of allied Continental
forces to fight against France, while she held the sea. The
movement towards such a coalition begins with Russia, but it is
brought to a head by the putting to death of the Duke of
Enghien.
A conspiracy against the life of Napoleon was undertaken
by the Emigres with the support of the Bourbon princes, and
worked from England. Napoleon believed that the young Duke
of Enghien, the heir of the Condes, a junior branch of the
Bourbon royal family, was at the head of it or mixed up in it.
He had this young man seized on neutral territory, in Baden,
just beyond the Rhine, brought him to Paris, and there had
him shot on March 21, 1804. It was this conspiracy which led
to the declaration of the French Empire with Napoleon as
Emperor, and rule hereditary in his family, shortly afterwards.
The killing of the Duke of Enghien roused the most violent
feelings, Russia in particular demanding the withdrawal of cer-
tain French garrisons from North Germany. Pitt was ready to
subsidize, Sweden would give her adherence; and Pitt suggested
a complete coalition of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, for the
wiping out of the whole Revolutionary effort and the restoration
of all Western Europe to the condition in which it had been
before the Revolution had broken out.
In reply Napoleon proposed an invasion of England, and